This last weekend I went on a trip to Busan/Pusan with some friends. If you didn't know, Busan is the 2nd largest city in Korea and is located on the southern coast. Busan is about 280 miles south of Seoul so a pretty lengthy drive especially with traffic, unless you take the KTX. The KTX is amazing, it's a bullet train that travels all throughout Korea and a trip that would have normally been 5-6 hours of driving was only 3 hours on the train. Come on California your slacking here.
PIFF: We planned the trip so we would be there during the Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF). This being my first film festival I didn't really know what to expect but by the end I was throughly impressed. I ended up seeing three movies: Lion's Den, The Sky Crawlers and Gomorrah. Luckily I picked three movies that were completely different so there was no monotony. Lion's Den is a story about a pregnant Argentinian woman and her struggles as she's imprisioned for murder. The Sky Crawlers and Gomorrah were a double feature shown in an outdoor theater on the beach, about 3,000 people. The Sky Crawlers was an amazing Japanese anime and Gomorrah was a "contemporary Neapolitan mob drama based on an expose of Italy's criminal underbelly". Unfortunately I watched all three movies on the same day so by the end I was pretty much spent. But if any of you get the chance to see one of these movies I would highly recommend it.Adventures: So there is a funny/scary story that I need to share with all of you, mostly funny but a bit scary. We arrived in Busan on Thursday night around midnight and went straight to our hotel to get settled in. Afterwards we decided to check out Haeundae Beach.
While walking along the boardwalk I saw one of the funniest things I've seen in Korea so far. At most of the beach locations in Korea you'll find people selling fireworks and bottle rockets to tourist. Most people hold onto the bottle rockets while they shot out into the ocean. So as we're walking we spot a father and 6 - 7 very young children with bottle rockets in their hands. Mind you, me and my friends are standing there thinking about how this is a really bad idea. As the father goes through and lights them all, the children are holding them almost straight ahead rather then in the air. And as the fireworks shoot out there exploding onto a bunch of couples that are walking along the beach. It takes a while before many of them realize it and in the confusion they just scatter. Eventually after 8 to 10 shots the father realizes it and goes through pointing them all up. Fortunately no one was hurt which is what makes the story funny rather then scary. But amazingly I wasn't surprised by the events, I've come to accept that safety is subjective and in Korea somewhat overlooked. 
Haeundae Beach is the biggest and one of the most popular beaches in Korea. This is just how busy it can get during the peak summer time. This isn't a picture that I took but one that I found on the internet. Compare it to the one that I took above. Many of you are probably thinking that this was photoshopped but I've spoken to people that have actually seen it this crowded.Well I hope you enjoyed the posting, for more pics check them out at the following. (http://picasaweb.google.com/
~Sunny
